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It was a travesty King Richard was off in the Holy Land, trying to rescue a kingdom I’d never cared about. Could the Lionheart even name a single town bordering Jerusalem? His courage and gallantry wasn’t in question. It was his shortsightedness and sensibility I raised a brow at. Though, if I asked the king, I’m sure he’d say the Crusade was the antithesis of shortsightedness.
In his wake, Richard’s vile brother, John, had stepped into power and brought society to its knees. His tyrannical taxes and tariffs were what made the Merry Men.
When people had nowhere else to go, giving up two-thirds of their earnings and crops to the Crown, they turned to desperate violence and outlawry to make ends meet.
I couldn’t deny my own involvement in the process. Deforestation, for example—the act of being industrious, whatever the fuck that meant. I’d cut down my fair share of trees. Yet I’d never fashion a door out of a beautiful old oak, just so people could see how I prospered.
No, I’d turn it into a wagon or two, instead. Something useful, which could carry a cartful of food or clothes to my less-fortunate neighbors.
I sighed and knocked again, louder this time.
My mind traveled to Robin. She’d lived here all her life. Pampered, no doubt. Gifted with luxury and pretty things like they were owed to her. I hoped living with the Merry Men for a time would show her how normal people struggled outside the picket fences of this grand manor and the ones next to it. Just beyond the borders of this pretentious house was an entire world beyond her imagining. One of desperation, adventure, and danger.
She had gotten a hint of it, so far. At least the danger bit. I wasn’t sure if she had the tenacity to withstand the horrors of watching a child die of starvation in the wilderness; a mother frozen to death, lost in the woods, blanketed with snow as she clutched a babe to her chest.
No, likely not. Yet if she stayed long enough with us, she would learn.
I can’t do that to her. This needs to work, so I can let her go.
An itch at the back of my mind had me furrowing my brow. Why was my natural inclination to resist letting her go? She was like any other hostage we’d taken. Expendable and worth only as much as the number of coin purses we could get for her.
Right?
My heart said no. She wasn’t like the others. There was something special about this one, and it wasn’t just that she had deceived the Merry Men into thinking she was a man for an entire evening.
I didn’t want to let her go.
The door creaked open and ripped me back to the present. I stared through the crack and saw nothing . . . until my chin lowered and I laid eyes on a small young woman whose gaze landed below my chest.
“Evening, lass,” I said with a soft smile.
“C-Can I help you, sir?”
She sounded scared. I opted not to get to her level, eye to eye, lest I frighten her even more with my size and stature. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Emma.”
“Emma, could you please fetch your, erm . . . master, for an audience with me?”
“You wish to speak with Lord Thomas? He hasn’t come out of his room all day, sir.”
“All the more reason for him to get some fresh air,” I said, trying on a more disarming smile.
At least he was here. The first leg of my journey had taken me north this morning, to a hamlet where the townsfolk told me they’d seen a beautiful carriage careen into town and promptly turn around.
I suspected he had fled for home after the ordeal of last night. I’d ridden hard, all day, to be here. I wasn’t turning around until I spoke with the bastard.
“Whom should I say is calling, sir?” Emma asked.
“The Sheriff of Nottingham.”
Her eyes widened and she scurried away, closing the door after her.
Minutes later, I heard heavy footsteps falling from inside. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited, backing up into the courtyard so I wouldn’t seem menacing up close.
I could change my distance, but I couldn’t change my height or the clamped jaw I sported. Any man who abandoned his only daughter to marauders, even at the risk of death, didn’t deserve my respect or pity.
The door swung open.
